Monday, September 24, 2012

New Workout and Health Research

Today I'm going to urge you swap some of your TV watching for short, burst workouts. First, the bad news.

"TV viewing time may be associated with a loss of life similar to other risk factors such as physical inactivity & obesity...On average, every single hour of TV viewed after the age of 25 reduces the viewer's life expectancy by 21.8 minutes." - http://bjsm.bmj.com/content/46/13/927.abstract?etoc

Okay, that's not good. But this is.

And it might be the most interesting  and shocking  workout study ever.

22 college-aged women did 4 workouts per week for 4 weeks in one of three groups.

Group A did 30 minutes of treadmill running at 85% max heart rate

Group B did 8 rounds of 20 seconds of a single exercise (burpees, jumping jacks, mountain climbers, or squat thrusts) with 10 seconds of rest between rounds.

Group C did nothing (they were the non-training control group).

Results: Both training groups increased their aerobic fitness levels by the SAME amount (about 7-8%). That's right, the short bodyweight workouts (of 4 minutes) worked just as well as 30 minutes of cardio. Shocking.

BUT only Group B, the TT style training, also increased muscular endurance in common exercises like chest presses, leg extensions, sit-ups, and push-ups.

And finally, the TT style training used by Group B also resulted in greater overall workout enjoyment.

The Crazy Canadian Scientists concluded that "extremely low volume bodyweight interval-style training" will boost cardiovascular fitness just as well as cardio while giving you BETTER improvements in muscle endurance. All in just 4 minutes.

So swap out some TV watching for bodyweight circuits at home. For a complete plan, use my simple secret circuits here: